


been here all along

by Rusoe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A lot of drunken shenanigans, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern, Drunken Shenanigans, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Sharing a Bed, Unrequited Love, four plus one fic, not beta read either, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 14:54:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14571426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rusoe/pseuds/Rusoe
Summary: Or, Four Times Hux and Poe Pretended to be a Couple, and One Time They Didn't.(My fill for Day 3 of Gingerpilot Week, aka Secret/Pretend Relationship Day)





	been here all along

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the title is a Taylor Swift song reference. Sue me.

1

Going out to drink alone had been a mistake, Armitage thinks. He’d been bored out of his mind just sitting in his empty, new living accommodations, and, in an uncharacteristic display of procrastination, had decided to put off finishing moving in until later, leaving the still unpacked boxes behind to go out and sample the local nightlife instead.

Now, however, he wishes he had just bit the bullet and stayed home to do housekeeping—it may have been the boring alternative, but it still beats getting pawed at by some drunk idiot.

“You’ve got pretty eyes, you know,” the man slurs, the stench of alcohol thick on his breath as he leans in way too close to Armitage’s face for comfort.

“So I’ve been told,” Armitage says, giving the man a tight smile as he tries to think of a way to squeeze past the arm caging him against the wall.

The man leans in even closer.

“So, what do you say you and I get out of here and get to know each other a little better, huh?”

Armitage suppresses a sigh, then readies himself to knee the guy in the groin in case the response to his answer goes south, but before he can open his mouth to reply, a new voice chimes in.

“Is this guy bothering you, babe?”

Both him and the man turn their heads. Standing before them is another unfamiliar man, and Armitage is briefly confused as to what’s happening before the man winks at him, then steps closer to place a possessive hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry I’m late, traffic was bad,” the newcomer says to him with a smile. He then turns to face Armitage’s abhorrent admirer. “Now, who are you?”

The man, obviously caught off-guard, gapes at the two of them for a couple seconds before muttering something unintelligible under his breath, then shoving his hands into his pockets and stalking off.

Armitage and the newcomer watch his retreating back disappear into the rest of the crowd before stepping apart.

“Sorry if I overstepped,” the newcomer says first. “Thought you looked a bit uncomfortable over there and thought I’d see if I could help you out.”

Armitage gives him a slight smile, a genuine one this time, and shakes his head. “No, thank you for that. I wasn’t sure if he was ever going to leave me alone.”

“I guess you’re welcome then,” the man says, smiling back. He holds out his hand. “I’m Poe, by the way. Poe Dameron.”

Armitage takes it automatically. “Armitage Hux,” he says. They shake.

“Want a drink?” Poe asks. “It’ll be on me—you look like you need one.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one buying you a drink?” Armitage remarks dryly. “You’re the one who rescued me, after all.”

Poe laughs. “Well if you want to, I certainly won’t refuse. So, how about it then?”

Armitage considers it for a moment. He doesn’t know Poe, and he really should be going back to get some work done, but, well…

“…I guess I’m already here, so why the hell not,” he says, shaking his head again and smiling. “Lead on.”

The rest of the night passes without any complications. Poe is interesting, friendly, and has a great sense of humor, and Armitage finds himself laughing more than he has in months. They find out that they’re both in town to get master’s degrees at the local university, and, as they step outside the bar to each return to their respective apartments, they exchange numbers and promise to try to keep in touch.

All in all, Armitage considers it a decent end to an otherwise uneventful day.

 

2

“What do you _mean_ you forgot your wallet?” Armitage hisses.

“Look, okay, I thought I had it, but I guess I must’ve left it in my other jacket which I didn’t wear because I was going to do the laundry today!” Poe whispers back. “But why don’t _you_ have _your_ wallet?”

Armitage groans and resists the urge to bang his head against the table. They’re out at the stupidly hipster Asian fusion place around the corner from Poe’s apartment, celebrating Armitage having gotten the internship he wanted, and they’d been having a great time too—until, just as they were about to pay the bill, _this_ had to happen. “ _I_ don’t have my wallet because you said you were paying for dinner this time around, so I figured I wouldn’t need it!”

“What?” Poe says, incredulous. “What happened to your ‘always being prepared for any eventuality when going out’ philosophy that you keep lecturing me about?”

Armitage glares at him. “Keep your voice down, are you _trying_ to get us thrown out and arrested for theft?”

Poe puts his hands up in a placating gesture. “Alright, alright, sorry.”

Armitage looks around and, seeing their waitress beginning to walk towards them, leans forward to frantically whisper at Poe. “Right, here’s what we’re going to do: You’re going to leave right now and run back to your place to get your wallet—”

“Wait, wait, wait, hold on,” Poe interrupts, a mischievous smile spreading on his face that is setting all sorts of alarm bells off in Armitage’s head. “I’ve got a better idea, just follow my lead.”

“What do you mean you’ve got a better idea—your ideas are always full of shit,” Armitage says, but Poe’s not listening to him anymore, no, instead he’s getting up out of his seat, walking around to Armitage’s side of the table and _going down on one knee_.

Armitage just stares. “Dameron, _what do you think you’re doing_.”

Poe just winks at him and mouths “trust me” before taking his hand and fuck, if he’s about to do what Armitage thinks he’s about to fucking do _—_

“Armitage Hux,” Poe begins to say loudly, and yes, the fucking imbecile _is_ doing what Armitage was hoping he wouldn’t because now he’s launched into an overdramatized and seriously embellished retelling of the first time they met, complete with flowery descriptions of Armitage’s eyes, and literally everyone in the restaurant is staring at them.

It’s the most embarrassing moment of Armitage’s life and he wishes that he could just disappear into the floor and die. Then he amends that wish into getting the chance to _wring Poe’s ill-bred neck_ first before kicking off, but really, that kind of death is still too good for him, so maybe immolation instead, or exsanguination—

A squeeze to his hand interrupts his musings, and he comes back to the present just in time to hear Poe say the final words of his speech.

“…so, will you make me the happiest man in the world, and marry me?”

The entire restaurant is silent, the tension in the air palpable. Armitage opens his mouth.

 _No_ , he wants to say, wants to put a stop to this idiotic charade right now and have that stupidly earnest look on Poe’s face wiped off and replaced with something more normal, more _bearable_ —but to his surprise, what comes out instead is a single, shaky, “ _Yes_.”

The entire room erupts into cheers and applause. Poe’s smiling too, and then he’s standing, pulling Armitage up with him to stand as well and suddenly their faces are way too close and Poe’s lips are on his and they’re—they’re _kissing_ , somehow, to the wolf-whistles and increased cheers from the crowd and it’s…it’s everything he’s ever wanted, and yet absolutely _nothing_ at the same time and _shit_ , when did his life get so ridiculous?

…Most ridiculous of all, of course, is the fact that the whole half-baked scheme actually _works_ —the restaurant, after congratulating them on their “engagement”, comps their meals and sends them home with a bottle of wine.

They hold hands the entire way back to Poe’s apartment building (“Just in case they sent anyone to tail us,” Poe insists), but once they get there, Poe lets go and bursts out into uncontrollable laughter.

“That was _great_ ,” he wheezes out between gulps of air. “Free meals! We _have_ to do that again sometime. Sorry for springing that kiss on you, by the way. Thought it’d make it more believable, especially since we didn’t have a ring.”

Armitage isn’t laughing. “No, we are _not_ doing that again, ever. Because from now on, _neither_ of us are ever going to forget to bring money again, _do you understand me_?”

Poe immediately stops laughing, a contrite look on his face. “Right, yeah. Sorry. It really was an accident Hugs, I swear.”

He raises the free bottle of wine and shakes it. “Wanna come in and have an apology drink on me?”

Armitage looks at him for a moment, then sighs and rolls his eyes. “Fine. But just one. Unlike _some people_ , I like getting up early in the morning to get things done.”

Poe smiles, then goes to press the elevator call button.

Of course, one drink turns into two, then four, then to a number that makes Armitage’s liver hurt just thinking about it. Within the next few hours they’re both too wasted to do anything other than pass out together on Poe’s shitty, moth-eaten couch, and in the morning they both wake with the mother of all hangovers.

They spend the majority of the day (a weekend, thankfully) arguing companionably with each other while puttering about Poe’s apartment, finally saying farewell when Armitage remembers that he does actually have work to do and really has to be going.

The events of the previous night are not something they talk about again, and Armitage is completely fine with that. Really.

Still, he can’t completely ignore the new feeling of gnawing emptiness he sometimes gets when he and Poe are hanging out together, and he ends up dealing with it by throwing himself into work and his studies harder than ever.

 

3

Ducking behind a shelf of assorted cereals, Armitage frantically prays to a higher power—any higher power—that he hasn’t been seen, or, even better, that the person he’s just caught a glimpse of isn’t actually the person he thinks they are.

A quick glance around the corner tells him that both his prayers have fallen on deaf ears because unfortunately that really _is_ his obnoxious ex, and he’s now making a beeline towards Armitage’s hiding place with a purposeful look on his face.

Fuck.

“…Hux? Is that you?”

Armitage straightens up and takes a deep breath before turning to face the embodiment of all the bad choices he made during his college years, a fake smile plastered on his face.

“Ben! What a surprise! What are you doing here?”

Ben smiles at him in that weird, awkward way of his that’s just so painfully familiar. “I, uh, I’ve got a conference in town tomorrow and there doesn’t seem to be much to do around here, so I’m just wandering around a bit. And you?”

Armitage looks blankly at him. “I live here.”

Ben blinks, then shoves his hands into his pockets, clearly flustered. “Oh…! Right, you came here after graduation to get your master’s, and now…”

“Now I’m getting my doctorate,” Armitage finishes for him. 

They stand there for a moment in awkward silence.

“So, anything new happen in your life,” Armitage ventures, hoping for the conversation to end soon, but reluctant to break it off himself lest he come off as rude.

“Well…I got married,” says Ben, and wow, that is _not_ what Armitage was expecting to hear, at _all_.

“Congratulations,” he still says, the smile on his face feeling even more plastic by the minute. “Do I happen to know the lucky party?”

Ben shrugs. “No, I met her after, uh…you left.”

There’s another awkward pause before Ben hurriedly follows up with, “…What about you? Have you met anyone since…?” and no, Armitage definitely does not miss the quick glance Ben gives to his left hand and the extremely clear lack of a ring there before a look of _pity_ crosses his face and well, that just _really_ rubs him the wrong way.

The next words escape his mouth before he has a chance to really think about them. “I’ve got a boyfriend, yes, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear,” Ben says. Another pause. “Hey, uh, I’d love to meet him. Tonight’s probably too short notice, but I’ll still be in town tomorrow night—we should meet for dinner.”

Armitage feels himself sliding into something that feels a lot like panic. “Sure, of course,” he hears himself say, voice sounding eerily distant. “Message me on Facebook?”

“Yeah,” Ben replies, smiling. “I’m looking forward to it. See you then.”

“See you.”

 _Fuck_.

Back at the apartment, Poe almost pisses himself laughing. “And you said _what_?”

Armitage glares at him from where he’s perched on the kitchen counter, sipping at a cup of his favorite tea. Becoming Poe’s roommate had come with a lot of benefits, chief among them being that together, the two of them could now afford to pay rent for an actually nice apartment, but right now he thinks it might have been worth staying in his old shithole of a shoebox to avoid having to deal with Poe’s insufferable personality 24/7.

“It doesn’t _matter_ what I said, I’m just going to message him right now and tell him that something came up and I can’t meet up with him for dinner after all.”

“Wait, no, hold on, please, I _have_ to meet this guy,” Poe says, jumping up from the couch.

Armitage rolls his eyes. “No, you don’t. Also, unless you can come up with a miracle solution in the next hour or so as to how I can show up to dinner with my asshole ex and my boyfriend when, as you might have noticed, _I_ _don’t have a boyfriend_ , I _will_ be calling it off.”

Poe doesn’t even miss a beat. “Oh, that’s easy. I can be your boyfriend!”

Armitage nearly chokes on his tea. “You _what_?”

“Come on Hugs,” Poe says, “you have to admit, this is perfect! I get to meet someone from your mysterious past that you insist on not telling me anything about, and you get to convince this guy you’re still hung up over that you’ve moved on!”

“I— _hung up over_? I’ll have you know I am _not_ —”

Poe waves off his indignant protests. “Or whatever. The _point is_ , this is a win-win situation for the both of us. So, how about it, Hugs?”

Armitage gives him a look of pure disbelief. “If you think that I’d ever let you go to dinner with my _ex_ —”

“— _And_ I’ll pay for the groceries for the rest of the month,” says Poe, voice turned sweet and pleading, and well, Armitage can’t really refuse an offer like that now, can he?

“… _Fine_ ,” he groans, putting his head in his hands. “But we’re going to need a story.”

Together, they concoct up some nauseatingly sweet tale about how their relationship started and progressed, and then they pick a sufficiently decent Italian restaurant to stage their plan at, messaging Ben with the details when they’re ready.

In the end, the dinner goes much smoother than Armitage could have ever imagined. He and Poe ramp up their usual level of touchiness (read: Poe’s general propensity to be physical with everyone he knows), and that, added to Poe’s uncanny charm and ability to improvise, has Ben buying the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker.

As for Poe, he has a great time teasing embarrassing stories about college freshman Armitage out of Ben, things that almost make Armitage wish he hadn’t agreed to this plan in the first place—almost, that is, until he sees Poe smile in that carefree, uninhibited way of his that, due to their respective workloads, he hasn’t seen in a while.

“You’ve changed,” Ben tells him later, when they’re waiting for dessert to arrive and Poe’s gone off to the bathroom, leaving the two of them alone with each other. “I think he’s good for you. You seem…happier. I’m glad you found him.”

Armitage stays silent for a moment, not knowing how to respond.

“Thank you,” he finally says, with a slight smile. “I am too.”

 

4

“Hey Hugs, how would you like to go to the Bahamas for a week?”

Armitage looks up from the newspaper article he’s reading. “What?”

Poe shrugs off his coat and hangs it on the coatrack, dropping his backpack on a nearby chair as he walks into the space that they’ve designated their living room.

“The Bahamas! Remember that office draw I entered, like, last month for a chance to get a one week, all-expenses-paid vacation to a resort in the Bahamas? Well, I won! And I get to take one guest with me. Sort of.”

Armitage raises an eyebrow. “Sort of?”

Poe sighs, and collapses onto the couch. “So, _technically_ I wasn’t supposed to enter the drawing, because it was supposed to be for couples only—but to be fair they put that clause in the fine print and nobody reads the fine print, so how was I supposed to know?”

Armitage can feel a headache starting to come on. “And what, may I ask, does this have to do with me?”

“Aw, come on Hugs, don’t be like that,” Poe says. “If I want to claim this trip, I have to bring my significant other. Given that I don’t actually have a significant other, I thought you’d might like to tag along.”

“I have _work_ to do, Dameron,” Armitage grouses.

“Yeah, but it can wait a week, can’t it?” Poe says, irritatingly persistent as always. “Don’t you think we both deserve a break? It’ll be fun, I promise! Besides, it’s _free_.”

His resistance quickly eroding away, Armitage can’t deny that the idea sounds attractive. Knowing this, he decides to save them both the trouble of continuing the argument for another couple hours, and caves.

Still, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t seriously regret agreeing to go along with the whole farce at multiple points along the way, starting with when Poe falls asleep on him during the plane ride and gives him a crick in his neck, then when the hotel concierge reads out a reservation for “Mr. and Mrs. Dameron” at check-in and Poe just won’t stop snickering at him, and finally, once they’ve successfully manage to find their room, the discovery of the fact that they’ve _of course_ been given only one bed.

“This entire debacle was your idea,” Armitage grumbles as he kicks off his shoes and flops onto the bed. “Therefore, I get the bed and you can sleep on the floor.”

Poe laughs. “As if your skinny ginger ass could take up all that space. We’re both adults here, we can share…Right, _Mrs. Dameron_?”

“Call me that again and I’ll castrate you,” Armitage growls, but he’s too tired to put any real heat into the threat.

They take turns showering, washing the sweat and grime from travelling off of their bodies before collapsing onto opposite sides of the bed and quickly drifting off to sleep.

In the morning, Armitage wakes with a terrible taste in his mouth and something heavy across his chest. It takes a moment for it to register that said heavy thing is Poe’s arm, and that they’ve both migrated to the center of the bed in the night, but as he turns his head to wake Poe up and tell him to move, Armitage finds the words catching in his throat.

Poe’s ridiculously handsome, this is just a fact of the universe, and it was probably inevitable that Armitage would end up falling just a little bit in love with him over the years they’ve known each other—because who _wouldn’t_ —but now, lying here with their faces only inches apart from one another, is the first time he’s felt this strong an urge to reach up and caress Poe’s rugged jawline, to cradle his face and lean in closer to place a kiss on those slightly parted lips.

It’s a stupid urge, he knows, and he would die before he would jeopardize his and Poe’s friendship like that, so, to distract himself from the schoolgirl blush that’s rising on his face, he promptly kicks Poe in the shin.

Poe’s eyes fly open immediately. “…Wha…?”

“Poe. You’re crushing me. Get off,” is Armitage’s only response, and he’s inordinately relieved when Poe easily complies and shifts his arm, allowing him to roll off the bed and escape into the bathroom. Splashing some water onto his face, he pauses for a second to stare at his reflection in the mirror and sighs. How he’s going to survive six more days of this, he has absolutely no clue.

Thankfully, there’s enough to do around the resort to take his mind off of things. Over the next couple days, he and Poe spend hours hiking and walking around the obnoxiously overcrowded beaches. They also swim quite a lot too, both in the resort swimming pool and out in the actual sea—Poe even attempts to teach Armitage how to surf at one point—but the problem with swimming with Poe is that it exposes one to a lot of either half-naked Poe or clingy shirt Poe, both of which are more handsy than usual and neither of which are particularly conducive to Armitage’s resolution to stop having weird thoughts about his best friend.

And, adding to the whole mess, they drink. They drink quite a lot, actually, an inevitable byproduct of being young, stupid and having unlimited, free access to the hotel bar, and it’s actually at that bar, on their fourth night, that everything comes to a head.

“Hey Hugs,” Poe says to him right after they both finish their second drink of the night. “Remember when we first met? It was kinda like this, wasn’t it?”

Armitage hums in response. “It was a shittier bar, with less touristy-looking people, but yes, it was ‘kinda like this’, I suppose.”

Poe grins, and raises his hand to order more drinks for them both. “Did I approach you first, or was it the other way around?”

“If I recall correctly, you were the one who approached me first,” Armitage says, idly tracing a crack in the surface of the bar with the toothpick from his martini glass. “In fact, I believe you actually came to rescue me from the unwanted attentions of a would-be suitor, like a knight in cheap, faux leather armor.”

Poe laughs at the comparison. “Like a knight, huh? Does that make you my damsel in distress, then?”

Armitage shrugs. “I suppose.” The bartender arrives with their new drinks and Armitage gives the man a perfunctory “thank you” before picking up his glass and downing it in one go, savoring the way it burns as it goes down his throat.

Besides him, Poe is making wounded noises and generally continuing to be as irritating as usual. “And I guess I never got anything for my troubles, huh, Hugs? Not even a thank you kiss like they do in the movies,” he’s saying, hand clasped over his heart in a dramatic fashion and _god_ does Armitage wish he would just _shut up_.

So, in accordance with his alcohol-muddled mind, he does the logical thing and kisses him.

Vaguely, he’s aware that this is an important moment that’s happening, and that there’s something not quite right about what he’s doing—can’t quite remember what—but Poe’s lips are soft and warm and wet, and it’s just so hard to focus on anything other than how _good_ he’s feeling right now, how _wonderful_ and _complete_ he is and so he lets all other thoughts fade away into the background and focuses on chasing the faint taste of vermouth in Poe’s mouth, not stopping until they’re both gasping for air.

“There,” he says, reaching for a napkin to wipe away some of the saliva that’s escaped the corner of his mouth. “Is that thanks enough?”

For once in his life, Poe is totally silent, no wisecracks or bad jokes. A quick glance over tells him that he’s staring at Armitage with a look of something like complete and utter shock on his face, and that niggling “not quite right” feeling of Armitage’s has made a return when Poe’s expression changes to one of complete delight.

“…Sorry Hugs, I’ve been told I’m a bad listener, so I think you might have to tell me that again,” he says, a devilish grin on his face, and oh, now Poe’s initiating a kiss and they’re pushing and pulling at each other’s clothing as they stumble out of the bar and somehow make their way back up to their hotel room where they continue the proceedings in a decidedly non-platonic way.

“Well,” Poe says the next day, when Armitage is loudly complaining about the very new soreness in his backside, “on the bright side, I guess this means we weren’t lying about being a couple to get on this trip after all.”

Armitage doesn’t even bother gratifying him with an answer, choosing instead to hook his thumbs into Poe’s belt and pull him back towards the bed. They have a lot of lost time to make up for, after all, and they shouldn’t let any more of it go to waste.

Suffice to say, they don’t leave the hotel room much for the remainder of their vacation time.

 

+1

Armitage has never been more nervous in his life.

Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he reaches up to fiddle with his boutonnière for what must be the hundredth time in the last ten minutes, fingers threatening to worry holes into the petals.

Behind him, he hears Phasma sigh again.

“Armitage. You look fine,” she says. “Now, hurry up. He’s waiting for you.”

Armitage laughs a little. “I know, thanks,” he says, giving one last fraught glance at the mirror before turning to her and taking a deep breath.

“I think I’m ready now.”

Phasma, his childhood friend and now, best woman, scoffs at him. “You’d better be. We didn’t all pay for transportation here just for you to get cold feet now. Come on.”

She opens the door leading to the church’s antechamber and he follows her out—and there, waiting for him in front of the main hall doors, just like Phasma said, is Poe Dameron in all his unfairly gorgeous glory, looking like someone straight out of a magazine in his well-tailored suit and with his normally “artfully messy” hair finally combed back.

Most beautiful of all, however, is the way Poe’s eyes seem to light up as soon as he sees Armitage, and, as Armitage walks up besides him, he has to tamp down the desire to throw aside all decorum and kiss Poe right then and there.

There’ll be plenty of time for that later, after all.

“Hey,” Poe says, his typically confident voice almost seeming to waver a bit. “You look…amazing.”

Armitage tries his best not to blush fiercely. “Thank you. You do too.”

And then Poe smiles at him, something raw, and real, and radiant, and if he had any doubts as to what they are about to do, they all melt away under the force of that smile—because that right there is the smile he wants to wake up to every day for the rest of his life.

“Shall we?” Poe asks, offering him his arm.

Armitage takes it, smiling back.

“Lead on.”


End file.
